SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Inland weddings surge

As opponents of same-sex marriage try to reinstate Prop. 8's ban on gay and lesbian weddings, clerks’ offices in Riverside and San Bernardino counties report a surge in business in the two weeks since gay marriage again became legal in California.

More weddings have been performed at Riverside County clerk’s offices in the first nine days of this month than in all of July 2012, said Michele Martinez-Barrera, principal auditor appraiser for the assessor-county clerk-recorder. A U.S. Supreme Court decision led to the resumption of gay and lesbian marriages on July 1.

The number of weddings in San Bernardino County offices in the first nine days of July was more than double the number performed during the same period in July 2012, said Dan Harp, he county's assistant assessor-recorder.

The counties’ records don’t differentiate between same-sex and opposite-sex couples in its records. But Martinez-Barrera and Harp said many of the couples this year are same-gender pairs.

Nearly 440 weddings had been performed in Riverside County offices by Thursday — compared with 311 in the entire month of July 2012 — and 250 couples had wed in San Bernardino County in the first two weeks of this month.

Both counties also reported a much higher-than-average number of marriage licenses issued so far this month.

“I do think it’s going to taper off at some point,” Harp said. “The $20,000 question is when?”

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FIGHTING FOR BAN

Meanwhile, proponents of Prop. 8 announced on Friday, July 12, that they asked the California Supreme Court to block county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The legal petition argues that Prop. 8, the 2008 voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, is still in force.

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 let stand a 2010 federal district court ruling that found Prop. 8 unconstitutional.

Jim Campbell is legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based conservative Christian religious-freedom group that, along with ProtectMarriage.com, filed the petition to the California high court. He contends that only an appellate court can strike down a state law.

The Supreme Court ruled that Prop. 8 proponents did not have legal standing to defend the initiative in court. That invalidated a federal appellate court decision that also declared Prop. 8 unconstitutional. The Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the initiative.

After the court’s decision, state officials told California’s 58 county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said the state didn’t have the right to do so and that the county clerks are breaking the law by issuing the licenses.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine law school, said the federal district ruling that the Supreme Court let stand clearly bars enforcement of Prop. 8 statewide.

“My own sense is that it’s over, that there will be more lawsuits, but I don’t foresee same-sex marriage being prohibited in California again,” he said.

Chemerinsky said if lawsuits seeking to enforce Prop. 8 fail, opponents of same-sex marriage could put another initiative similar to Prop. 8 on the ballot. But, he said, “I think it’s extremely unlikely an initiative like Prop. 8 could pass today, given the changes in social attitudes.”

Several polls this year have found that about 6 in 10 Californians now support the right of same-sex couples to marry. Even if a ban on same-sex marriage were to pass, “I think it would be declared unconstitutional, just as Prop. 8 was declared unconstitutional,” Chemerinsky said.

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“THE SOONER THE BETTER”

As legal wrangling over Prop. 8 continues, same-sex couples throughout the Inland area are waiting in line at clerks’ offices for marriage licenses and celebrating weddings.

Some weddings have been quick and small, in or outside a county office building.

Linda and Mickey Durand-Gort are planning a big wedding at their Riverside church in July 2014. But they asked their pastor, the Rev. Jane Quandt of First Congregational Church of Riverside, to legally marry them in their living room on Tuesday.

Linda Durand-Gort, 65, said she believes the possibility that same-sex marriage would again be banned in California is small. But the couple didn’t want to take any chances. They recalled how gay and lesbian marriages were legal for 20 weeks in 2008 but then stopped after Prop. 8 passed.

“They took it away from us before, and you never know what will happen in the legal system,” Linda said. “I just thought the sooner the better.”

While 10 family members and friends looked on, Linda walked into the living room to Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” as Mickey waited in her wheelchair to marry the woman she loves.

“It was three years ago today that we had a wonderful ceremony, a beautiful ceremony, here where we married you in the eyes of God, and that we claimed that no matter what the state says, in the eyes of God, you were married,” Quandt said, referring to a July 10, 2010, commitment ceremony for the couple that she presided over. “And in some ways those are the only eyes that should matter. But they aren’t.”

Quandt said the marriage would now be legal in the eyes of government — and society.

“We’re now to a point where the world is starting to get it, and starting to say, yeah, this love is absolutely equal to any other love,” Quandt said. “Love is love.”

After Quandt pronounced the couple lawfully wedded spouses, Linda and Mickey each took a lit white candle and together put the flames onto another candle, signifying their bond.

“Defend them from all enemies of their love,” Quandt said in a prayer to God that followed.

As Mickey, 57, mingled with guests afterward next to a dining-room table filled with sandwiches, vegetables and cupcakes, she said she felt different.